Sky has agreed to supply Tiscali's TV service with the same package of channels it took away from Virgin Media in a dispute over charges earlier this year.
The deal for the satellite broadcaster's "Basics" package will make Sky One shows such as Lost and 24 available to Tiscali's 50,000 TV customers. The ISP bought south east- …

Theft...

Wow, So What...

.. A whole 50,000 extra customers sky potentially have to watch the sky basic channels, no where near the many they lost when they decided to try and bully virgin media into paying way over the odds for their channels!!

Would be interesting to see how much Tiscalia paid for these channels though seeing as the price sky wanted from virgin media was based on the value they put on their channels and nothing to do with potential viewers.

If Tiscalia have paid anywhere near what sky demanded from Virgin Media then they have been robbed, if it was considerably less then Virgin Media will have even more fire power with the ongoing legal battle they have with sky.

Still happy with Virgin...

Virgin and Sky

During the whole Virgin Sky battle I've seen many people suggest that 24 could be shown on virgin's sky one replacment channel. Now correct me if I'm wrong but isn't 24 a Fox show? And isn't Fox owned by Murdoch who owns SKY. Why in the world would he let Sky One lose this key show to Virgin?!?!?!

Besides from what I've read in the press the Virgin replacement channel is going to draw its show's from Bravo and Living. Channels which I never watch cause its all drivel.

To a certain degree I agree with some of the virgin customers about Sky One being a Simpsons rerun channel but at the same time it probably has the most first run programs we actually watch.

Homechoice Tiscali

Homechoice always had a system called "Sky By Wire" which was supposed to be the cable equivalent repackage of Sky* and gave the service many Sky channels. I don't know what this deal is, but it must be just an extension of the existing channel arrangement.

Homechoice, as a business was always running on the knife edge of profitability. Many times I (as someone who worked around them) thought they would go down, but instead they got bought before they could crash and burn. I suppose Tiscali is going to be throwing cash at them to make it work.

*Interestingly, I haven't checked lately and it may have changed, but the "Sky By Wire" for Homechoice was in fact just a collection of satellite receivers in a machine room down-linking the signal off of Astra and then recoding it for HomeChoice. Something always seemed wrong about that to me.

Sky has exclusive rights in the UK

BBC originally brought 24 to the UK, I can't remember whether it was one or two series. Sky then bid a significantly higher amount for the subsequent series (as they do with everything) for the *exclusive* UK rights. The other issue was that the BBC moved from being encrypted on Sky, to 'Free-to-air', thus making anyone within the footprint of the satellites able to watch. This apparently made Fox unhappy with the situation as people in northern France can receive these transmissions, thus reducing the value the French TV companies may pay for 24 over there (why would subscribers pay extra for 24, when they can pick it up for free via the BBC).

As Sky have exclusive rights, Fox cannot then sell them to Virgin or any other company. However, Sky have the rights to distribute their channels to whoever they want (subject to it only being available in the UK).

What's the big deal?

Sky TV - 1000 channels of garbage with loads of adverts and you actually have to pay for them? The way that it's been reported you'd think that Virgin losing the three Sky channels was a major thing - they're pants!

But Virgin media is still the same price!

I'm happy to say I don't miss Sky 1, but there's one thing I'm not happy about. I'd like to see Virgin reduce the cost of my package by whatever they're saving in not paying for Sky. People are calling Sky greedy, but Virgin are greedy too for keeping the money I'm paying for channels they no longer provide.

Regulation?

Surely this industry should be subject to greater regulation - is it right that one company (i.e. Murdoch's cartel) should own the studio making the programmes, the channels broadcasting the programmes, and the means of distribution (the satellite system)?

Surely Fox can just "sell" any programme to Sky, no matter what the bid is, if it serve's Murdoch's interests to keep it off the other channels?

Finally, shouldn't his newspapers be forced to print a disclaimer alongside stories about his own companies, along the lines of "Sky TV is wholly owned by News Corporation, which also publishes The Times"?

Then the public would be able to tell which stories are merely vested interest promo pieces for Murdoch's other companies!